Paul Hawken Interview: WorldChanging
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on October 20th, 2009
Source: Worldchanging
“Paul Hawken Shares His Thoughts with Worldchanging About Optimism, Doomers and What’s Next”, by Kamal Patel
To the sustainability and the social justice crowd, environmentalist, entrepreneur and author, Paul Hawken, requires little introduction. He has written six books, including “Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution,” a book Bill Clinton calls ‘the fifth most important book in the world today.’
Hawken was this year’s Sustainable Industries: Economic Forum keynote speaker. During the event, Hawken asked the 300 plus sustainably-minded business leaders, entrepreneurs and political heads to truly look at the data: dangerous levels of atmospheric CO2, peak oil, peak soil – peak everything. Despite this, he said he remains optimistic. He focused much of his talk on solutions such as innovative solar design and collaborations, like linking green banking with affordable, green housing, food and transportation.
“What kind of economy would it be if we were to maximize the production of natural capital, rather than maximizing the capital of people? When you maximize the productivity of people, you use less people. Well we have more people than there are jobs. Basically we are using less and less of what we have more of, and with natural capital, using more and more of what we have less of. And we are using more of it (natural capital) to make people more productive, to use less people. So this is upside down and backwards, we should be using more and more people to use less and less natural capital.” Paul Hawken
Read the full article by Kamal Patel on Worldchanging.
